


Waking Up Cold

by Webtrinsic



Series: The Fantastic Four MCU, with lots of whump (S.2) [1]
Category: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four (2015), Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007), Fantastic Four (Movies), Fantastic Four (Ultimateverse), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Corpses, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt, Kidnapping, Pregnancy announcment, Reunions, Time Jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26184256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: After Doctor Doom kidnaps Reed, Ben and a pregnant Susan are forced into hiding. Luckily her son Franklin has powers vital to defeating Victor once and for all.(The first of Season 2 of my MCU Fantastic Four series.)RIP Chadwick, we will never forget you.
Relationships: Ben Grimm & Reed Richards & Johnny Storm & Susan Storm, Reed Richards/Susan Storm (Fantastic Four)
Series: The Fantastic Four MCU, with lots of whump (S.2) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901509
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Waking Up Cold

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to series 2 :) also i just wanted to say especially since Blank Panther has a consistent role in this series, I am extremely saddened about the passing of Chadwick. He was a phenomenal human being and I was actually in the middle of writing a scene for him when I heard the news and I truly wish his family well and my condolences. RIP

Susan comes to realize as she is forced to leave her husband alone with Doctor Doom that she should have heeded her own warnings. She wants to turn back the clock but she can’t and there is no escape from the suit she now dons. 

She so flippantly warned Johnny about loss, the loss of his own life but she did not fully take into consideration the loss of them all. Johnny seemingly had, she knew that now and she cursed her own shortsightedness. 

They were on the run, Johnny somewhere she did not know yet again, and their downfall was upon them. Ben and Sue were only saved when a man stepped out through an orange ringed portal, understanding in his eyes as he took them into hiding.

The invisible woman breaks into tears then, little comfort being provided by Ben’s now rocky-guise. 

It’s then she realized the news that she’d been waiting to share needed to come out now even when it was still all too late.

“I’m pregnant,”

* * *

Two years less than a decade pass, happiness is seemingly nonexistent and those who lived through the decimation claim that their predicament is slowly but surely starting to feel worse than even that.

There are bounties on her and Ben’s head, every superhero for the matter, even the retired ones. Victor may be smart but he wasn’t a psychic and he couldn’t see the future, they weren’t exactly a step ahead of him, more so they learned to live out of his sight.

Susan more so than Ben (who in these long years rarely receded into his human flesh) only grumbled in response when being referred to by his actual name. 

The totalitarian world around them is the farthest thing from the future she wanted her son to be living in, but they’d lost and she didn’t know how to explain that to an eight year old.

An eight year old who is nothing close to ordinary, she’d wondered if the blast would affect him in any way. She is answered when Franklin is watching an old western on a box TV and shifts reality itself to give himself a matching cowboy getup and two sparkling Colt Patersons.

She is terrified and not because her eight year old is wielding two guns that are certainly loaded, rather she is terrified because she is in the presence of an immense power that could rival the bastard who has taken everything from her.

Franklin doesn’t seem to realize how important what he’s done is as she kneels to his height and places her hands on his shoulders. She asks for something that she knows her son wants too.

Reed has spent eight years as a living trophy piece above Doctor Doom’s throne, and in seconds he is no longer imprisoned and falling to the ground. Victor is out, apparently having a feast in Dubai with world leaders who are not actually leaders.

Escaping the tower he once used to own is easy, and there is no one on the streets to bat an eye. The people of this earth fear the outside world and prefer to stay inside unless instructed otherwise.

He’s only outside for a minute before a flash of orange blinds him and the floor beneath him crunches under his weight. His wife and his friend stand in front of him with tears in their eyes, and she is eight years older physically while he is not, and her stress lines he wants to simply brush away, but he can’t.

There is a little boy running and diving into his legs, he draws the conclusion as if to who the mystery boy is immediately when the boy looks up at him with wide eyes the same color and shape as his own.

* * *

Meetings with the refugee camps that were once recognized as both SWORD and SHIELD come few and far between, but they rush to schedule something now. Reed has been watching over (quite literally) Doctor Doom for eight years, there is plenty he must know or so they hope.

It’s as if he’s learning to speak again as he tries to explain there is not much more in his head than taunts. The only things of importance have already come and gone. Pepper Potts and Morgan Stark were burned alive in their home, the raids on the government bases have long since passed, his family is not actually dead even when Victor had said they were, and his partner in crime is the one he is using his power to feed.

“The law of equivalent exchange,” Ben harrumphs because the man’s immortality is well known, flaunted in the everyday broadcast. And it has changed the people inhabiting this planet.

There are now drugs in certain products that encourage people to breed because many do not want to nowadays, knowing their child will be subjected to their same fate.

The people of this grieving empire know they live on death row, bodies more often either being found hanging from trees or simply lying dead in the streets. There is no will to survive in many, and it seems like a mocking lie that there was once optimist who believed as long as there were heroes or someone to stand up for what was right that there would be hope.

They are wrong because the heroes who are not dead are hiding as well.

There is the ringing of failure around the world, the failure of not being able to save those who they were supposed to protect, the failure to hold onto their faiths, and the failure of relinquishing their humanity to a mad man.

Reed didn’t mean to blame the victims for their failure, he knows it is his own self-deprecation that makes him feel this way and he’s projecting onto those who have lived through a burden he merely had to witness.

But his time in incarceration has eaten away at his mind, and no matter how many times he tells himself his wife and best friend are here, his son who he has only just met is present. He still failed and the mistress of grief has his eldest boy somewhere he does not know.

“Who’s Tony Stark?” Franklin suddenly speaks up, he’s heard the name in passing, the world grieving even more now that the man who had saved them once before is not here to do it again.

A hush falls over the room, and Bruce Banner no longer in his hulk form to keep himself less identifiable actually stumbles at the question.

“He was the world's greatest hero,” Sue answers and gently shushes, “I’ll tell you more later,”

Franklin acquiesces, and sticks back to her side and the subject is changed.

“Mr. Richards how do you suggest we proceed?” Fury asks and Reed can’t answer. He almost shouts how do they expect him to? He’s been a wall mount for eight long years with his insanity chipping away.

There is so much he needs to say and his brain is pushing what’s important to the back because he can’t do what he does best. He can’t lay out every angle and assess, it’d take years alone to assess the damage that has been done, and he is still processing that he is a human with limbs that can move, and not simply eyes that could blink.

There is a seemingly permanent white line in his vision, the sun angling itself into the tower, hitting his eyes and peeking through his closed lids. The line mocks him and there is some fear that it will never go away.

They take his silence as answer enough even when the look Fury has plastered on his face is a clear indication of his annoyance. They leave without a word and Ben takes the dazed man by the shoulder as they move to leave as well.

* * *

The mention of past heroes gets people whispering and talking, and Franklin eats up the stories as if he is starving. Enthralled at their powers and despondent when he is forced to remember they are dead and gone.

Not for long he reasons as he huddles in his sleeping bag that night, and unbeknownst to his family and the world, the two heroes that have peaked his interest the most are on earth yet again.

Tony Stark is comatose in disbelief, not a scar on his body and entirely intact. His home on the other hand lay at his feet in crumpled piles of rotted and charred wood and ash, the distorted and corroded metal of his suits are half assembled around scrapped bones that he instinctively knows belong to his wife and daughter. There is another pile of bones and a half burnt ID belonging to Happy on the porch as well. Tony cries looking up at a sky clouded with seemingly artificial weather, cursing the earth for bringing him back only to crush his resting spirit once more.

In Wakanda the Dora Milaje point spears at their once king's head, looking at him with a mix of emotions, some of their hands shaking as if it hurts to do so. They do not believe him when he identifies himself as their king and relays the story of a device shocking his suit until his death, it is only after Nakia’s approval of his character they put their spears down.

* * *

Wong hunts heroes down like he is being paid to do so, he is frantic to save those that he can since Strange is gone and can’t do so. 

There is a being risen again only told in stories, her power even more of a threat than Dormammu or Thanos all together. Wong knows they will need an army bigger than the one they’ve issued before to defeat her. 

He is not the most expressional of people, but when there is a pull in the cosmos that leads him to a kneeling beacon of hope, there is devastation and confusing marring his features that doesn’t go unnoticed by hope himself.

The once philanthropist’s voice is gruff and hoarse with tears as he forcefully grounds his question out, no doubt berating himself for taking his wife’s word and laying down to rest because he was foolish enough to believe that they would be okay. They are not. They are dead and the world only looks worse in his absence.

Tony Stark never imagined he would or even could be the person holding this godforsaken planet together, but all the evidence in his favor outweighs the smidges and implications that he is not the one keeping the world at bay.

“What happened?” 

Wong doesn’t know how to answer, so he brings the inventor back to the sanctum where he can get in contact with someone who could. 

The Fantastic Three plus a very pleased Franklin Richards stare at him in wonder before Sue rounds on her son and is taken aback that the child she created could bring so much opportunity.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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